Chapter One #2
Nothing in God’s name—that much was certain. This was Eros. It was Hades. It was all things wrong and sweet and tempting. Nothing he’d ever indulged in.
But he couldn’t let her move away from him.
She smelled of lilacs and of need. Of everything that he had been afraid of these past years. Afraid to miss, afraid to want.
His parents had married for duty, and within that, they’d found love.
He had truly believed that he might find that for himself.
He hadn’t. Instead, what he had proved was that marrying a stranger could be nothing but an absolute disaster if the two people were incompatible. Years and years wouldn’t fix it.
Nothing would fix it.
Nothing would fix this.
Nothing except the simple glide of her hair through his fingers felt like it was fixing something.
Made him feel more alive, more whole than anything ever had.
“What do you need?” The whisper on her lips was like the finest drug.
What did he need? He suddenly needed to taste the stranger more than he needed anything, more than he’d ever needed anything, including air.
He didn’t have the words for that. Couldn’t find a way to speak them, so instead, he lowered his head, and touched his mouth to hers. And for the first time in two years, he was kissing a woman.
For the first time in longer than he could remember, he was kissing one with true, real passion. Holding her head in his palm, he angled his own, parting his lips and sliding his tongue against hers. She made a short, whimpering sound, and moved away from him. He froze.
“I need this,” he said, his voice rough, a stranger’s. “I don’t need to know who you are, I don’t need to ever see you again. But I need…”
She nodded, his strange woman, gripped his face again and stretched up on her toes, and still he had to lean down to meet her. Kissing her, gathering her up in his arms and pressing her petite frame to his body. It was like fire. It was like nothing he’d ever experienced before.
Even before his marriage he hadn’t been the kind of man to take strangers as lovers.
He hadn’t been indiscriminate with sex. He couldn’t afford to be.
He was a king. And he didn’t trust nondisclosure agreements to that extent.
Nor did he feel that a king should act in such a manner that it necessitated them.
He had relationships. A couple, before he’d chosen Circe to be his queen.
He’d imagined that they would have a reasonable sex life, but it had gone from bad to nonexistent in their five years of marriage and he was… hungry.
An experience that he’d never had before had presented itself to him, and he did not possess the ability to deny himself.
She whimpered against his mouth, and he lifted her up off the floor, carrying her to the large chaise in the corner of the room.
The room was much darker than he would’ve liked, but he didn’t want to turn the lights on.
He didn’t want to do anything to break the spell of the moment. To feel like he was lifting the veil.
This was magic.
He was a man who’d experienced precious little magic in his life, and he wanted this. He didn’t want to think about anything that had come before. Didn’t want to think about the grief that sat at the center of his chest, didn’t want to think about the future.
A future where he would have to find another queen.
Where he would have to produce an heir. Where he would potentially fail as a husband all over again.
Right now he wasn’t failing. Right now, he had a warm, willing woman in his arms who was as into this as he was, and he wasn’t going to release his hold on her.
Not for anything.
Nimble fingers began to work the buttons on his shirt, and he found it pushed off of his shoulders, and he assisted.
Her palms were flat against his chest, and he could see that her eyes were wide, glittering as she moved her hands over his muscles, fingertips skimming his nipples, the sensation so erotic he grasped both of her wrists in one hand and held her still for just a moment. “I am on edge,” he said.
“Did I do something wrong?” she whispered.
“No,” he growled. “It’s too good. Too good. I don’t want to lose control.”
“I don’t mind if you do,” she whispered. “I told you. This is for you. Whatever you need.”
If he were to discover that this was a hallucination, one brought about by the horrors of the last week, he would have been unsurprised. Because this seemed like something straight out of a dream he’d never allowed himself to have.
He released his hold on her, and she moved her fingers down his chest, his stomach, her touch reverent.
Her dress was a stretchy, knit material, and he pushed it up her hips, peeling the clinging material away from her body, leaving her in dark-colored, brief underwear and a black bra.
His blood was running hot and fast. Everything inside of him begging him to take her. Take her.
He was about to ask yet again if she was certain this was what she wanted, when her hands went to his belt buckle, undid the button and zipper on his pants. Her hands were trembling, and he lifted one up to his lips and kissed her fingers. “It doesn’t have to—”
“I want this,” she said.
It was the first time she had been very clear that she wanted more than simply to comfort him.
She was clear. She wanted this. She wanted him.
He needed to be wanted. He hadn’t known that.
Hadn’t realized how hungry he was for someone to desire him.
He was a confident man; he had every reason to be.
But five years of being treated as if his desires were a punishment had taken something from him.
Eroded like waves against sand, slowly stealing pieces of who he’d been before with each pass of the tide.
This was like being healed.
So he stripped off the rest of his clothes, reached behind her back and unsnapped her bra before moving down to slide her underwear down her legs.
He wished that he could see her better, and yet was grateful that he couldn’t.
Because there was no way he would be able to keep his control and his composure.
Even now, in the dim light, the faint impression of her body was enough to make him come.
It took digging deep into his self-control to keep from losing it.
He kissed her again, reaching down between her legs and feeling how wet she was. So wet. For him. And with ease. He moved his thumb over her clit, before pushing two fingers inside of her. She whimpered, moving her hips in time with his strokes.
He moved his mouth away from hers, kissed down her neck, down to her glorious breast, where he sucked one tight nipple into his mouth, the sensation making his cock pulse with need.
He growled, grinding his hips down into hers, wrapping one arm around her waist and drawing her up against him as he flexed against her.
Her hands went to his hair, fingers digging into his scalp. He moved, and felt the head of his arousal right up against her slick entrance. He couldn’t hold back. “Yes,” she whispered in his ear.
All that he needed to hear.
He drove into her, the harsh cry on her lips fueling him on. She was so tight. So glorious and perfect.
It had never been like this. Not ever. He had never felt anything quite so essential. Had never felt like coming home before. But it did now.
He began to move, gripping both of her hips as he drove himself home, over and over again. Then he felt her begin to tighten around him, her back arched against him.
“Yes,” he whispered. “Come for me, darling.”
Her cries of pleasure seemed to shock her, her hand coming up and covering her own mouth as her internal muscles clenched around him, as she lost her control completely.
He couldn’t hold on. Not any longer. He let himself go, claiming her hard and fast, until his need was a raging beast he could no longer outrun.
He growled, pouring himself deep inside of her, the pleasure blotting out everything. Every thought. Every pain. Every doubt. Everything. For one, blissful moment, he knew what it was to simply be a man. A man lost in need. A man perhaps found in need as well.
He kissed her. Deep, hard.
Wrapped her tightly in his arms, and felt sleep begin to drag him down, an exhaustion that he’d never felt before claiming his entire body.
When he awoke with a start, he was naked on the chaise lounge, alone. All signs of his beautiful partner gone.
He would’ve thought that he’d dreamed it if he weren’t naked.
Still, he had a difficult time believing it had actually happened.
He didn’t know her name. He didn’t know who she was.
She had given him the most singular moment of his life, and now she was gone.
And he was left to deal with the aftermath of a life that was in ruin.